---
title: As they came forth she caught them and swallowed them again. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: As they came forth she caught them and swallowed them again. Who acts: people, mother. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/77/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Kaffir folk-lore](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/) / [The Story of the Cannibal Mother and H…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/) / 77

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children., sentence 77

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
As they came forth she caught them and swallowed them again.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** people, mother · **What happens:** come, catch, swallow · **To what, where:** people

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (people, mother), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg71335:15:77
# text = As they came forth she caught them and swallowed them again.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
4	forth	forth	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	swallowed	swallow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
10	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	again	again	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | people |  |  |  |  | forth *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **catch** | past | mother | people |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 3 | **swallow** | past | mother *not said here* | people |  |  | again |  | vn gobble-39.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Patient |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Project Gutenberg book 71335 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 76](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/76/)
- next →: [sentence 78](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/78/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/)